Los Altos Law

We have three practice areas: prosecution, licensing, and pre-litigation. We apply a strategic approach to each of these.

Prosecution

Licensing

Pre-Litigation

We pride ourselves on producing h­i­g­h­-v­a­l­u­e­ ­I­n­t­e­l­l­e­c­t­u­a­l­ ­P­r­o­perty f­o­r­ ­our clients. Our work includes prosecution of patents, prosecution of trademarks, and other recommendations for protection of your intellectual property (including trade secrets, such as nondisclosure and noncompete agreements, copyrights, and other issues involving legal aspects of new technology). While this century's technologic developments have inspired some people to file patent applications for almost everything they have that's new, we instead take a longer view of Intellectual Property: During prosecution, we treat Intellectual Property as an investment you are making, for which we want to maximize your ROI. Specifically, we try to gather as many possible inventions that might be patented, and apply considerations regarding protecting your market, or possibly licensing a breakthrough idea, so we can advise you on which of those inventions that should be patented.

In addition to protecting your market, Intellectual Property can become a performing asset on its own, particularly when the company has no ability or no interest in expanding into certain areas. Whenever possible, we can negotiate licensing terms on your behalf. This allows you the flexibility of using your Intellectual Property to protect your market, or alternatively, to use your Intellectual Property to glean licensing fees when that would be advantageous.

Before engaging in any litigation, we evaluate the likelihood of a successful result, and if so, the magnitude of that result. This requires pre-litigation with careful evaluation of the patents and the prior art, and consideration of the likely application of those patents against any accused devices or methods. Considerations of how the possible infringer, or how a court, would consider that evaluation, are also important.

Alternatively, if the company notes a threatening patent, or is accused of infringing, or is even sued, we are often able to make the same pre-litigation evaluation from the "other side of the mirror", and present you with a detailed description of possible risks, threats, or even opportunities. We are also able to work with your engineers to develop a work-around that can save the company from a damaging injunction as a result of litigation, or can cut off the prospect of infringement damages by offering a non-infringing version.